Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
AMANDA May Find Probes To Other Dimensions
AMANDA, an enormous neutrino-tracking "telescope" buried in the Antarctic ice, may be able to provide evidence of extra dimensions.
(AMANDA installation [Univ. Wisc.])
AMANDA, which stands for Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array, looks like a good spot to reshoot The Thing. The array first went operational in 1997; it detects the high-energy form of neutrinos, which has more than 10,000 times the energy of low-energy neutrinos emitted by the sun.
(AMANDA's optical sensors)
Amanda consists of an array of 677 bowling ball-sized optical sensors that are sunk in the ice, suspended by their fiber-optic cables like beads on a necklace. The array is cylindrical, measuring 500 meters in height by 120 meters in diameter.
(AMANDA array)
When a rare high-energy neutrino crashes into another particle like a proton or a neutron, a muon emerges and creates a flashlike trail of blue Cerenkov radiation. The trail is picked up by the array of suspended optical sensors.
According to a paper this month in Physical Review Letters, results from the array suggest that particles from space detected by the array could indeed serve as probes to higher dimensions than our ordinary three. Advocates of string theory have long hoped that neutrinos might provide a way to prove their theory.
The next version of the array, called IceCube, will be much larger and capable of a thirty-fold increase in resolution.
Science fiction writer James Blish, writing in 1958 in his epochal Cities in Flight novels, also refered to the possibility of building a probe that could travel into higher dimensions:
As it eventually worked out, the inter-universal messenger had to be constructed from the sub-microscopic level on up out of fundamental nuclear particles which came as close to being nothing at all as either universe would ever be likely to provide: zero-spin particles with various charges and masses, and neutrino/anti-neutrino pairs. Even detecting that the object was present at all after it had been built was an almost impossible task, for neutrinos and anti-neutrinos have no mass and no charge, consisting instead partly of spin, partly of energy of translation; it did no good to try to visualize such particles since like all the fundamental particles they were entirely outside of experience in the macroscopic world. Matter was so completely transparent to them that stopping an average neutrino in flight would require a lead barrier fifty light years thick.
See the short article here; see also more information about AMANDA. Thanks to Winchell Chung for providing the tip and the quote for this story.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 1/27/2006)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Space Tech ")
Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space
'...the Hole is something like a vortex or a whirlpool?' - Frank K. Kelly, 1935.
Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses...' - Murray Leinster, 1953.
SpaceX's Starman Tesla Roadster In Space
'Somewhere in space, a chrome and blue automobile raced the green light of Earth.' - Theodore Sturgeon, 1941.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
Caterpillar Electric Mining Loader Not Yet Ready For Moon
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
Centipede Robots Down On The Farm
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
Anthropic's Claude AI Creates Legal Citation From Whole Cloth
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize
'About time you got here,' the astronaut said.
'They Erased My Memory' Says Ariana Grande
'...using a neutralizing electronic impulse.'
Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space
'...the Hole is something like a vortex or a whirlpool?'
Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
DARPA Wants 'Large Bio-Mechanical Space Structures'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
Robot Hand Creeps Along, Separate From It's Owner
'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses...'
Korean Exoskeleton Suit F1 Helps You Put It On
'Better late than never.'
Have AI Researchers Given Up On 'Bio-Babies'?
'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
Bunker Busters and Bore-Pellets
'The first revelation of the new Soviet bore-pellets.'
'Spikeless' Brand Swizzle Stick Detects Spiked Drinks
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
